Spellsinger, Chapter 15: Battle of the Blazing Stars, Part 2

(If you’re reading the original edition, this is the last half of Chapter 12.)

Emily and Dr. Fletcher finally arrive at Ravenswood for the concert. Suddenly, Emily gets a telepathic message from Stormbringer that things are not right with Adriane. She runs over to Adriane’s cabin, where she meets up with Ozzie, Stormbringer, Lyra, and all the named refugees. There they discover that Adriane and her grandmother are under some sort of sleeping spell. Emily casts Dispel, which wakes them up.

Meanwhile, Kara notices something weird going down during her boss battle with not!Adriane. Adriane transforms into Johnny, and then shifts into some frightening reptilian creature before vanishing. Kara briefly wonders what the hell’s going on, but then is distracted by her Cursed Locket flaring up. And then Johnny suddenly appears in the room, asking Kara what’s wrong. Kara believes that she won her boss battle, and is all pumped for the concert. Yay?

Back at the cabin, Emily, Adriane, Ozzie, and the refugees finally realize that there’s a shapeshifter on the preserve. (It took them long enough!) There’s not a whole lot of discussion on the topic in the original edition; Ozzie only concludes that it’s a “demon-level” monster. (Wait … the monsters now have levels?) The conversation is a lot more lively in the new edition, and everyone’s favorite German tank commander-turned-magic koala chimes in, too:

When the Quest for Magic books came out and introduced the mage levels , I thought the same way. Honestly, I didn’t think that a magic system based specifically around teamwork and doing whatever one imagines (hopefully) could support arbitrary power levels.

FYI, the monster-level thing is never mentioned again in the books. I think it’s just a relic from the original edition.

It seems like levels are to magic as the Glasgow coma scale is to medicine: number labels to make things easier to describe. Avalon-verse magic doesn’t actually operate in levels, but some mage way back when thought of a system to mark magical milestones (ugh, alliteration) that most mages usually go through.

I think you’re right about that. All the mage levels correspond to when they obtain more powerful bonded creatures or shapeshifting abilities — which conveniently occur when a mage’s jewel evolves. Now which came first: jewel evolution, or the leveling system?

I dislike that they put creatures into good, evil, and neutral categories like the older editions of Dungeons & Dragons. I would work to show good and evil versions of any important creature in these books.

All’s Fairy in Love and War, Dark Mage, and Full Circle are the only books that have creatures that don’t fit their alignment: they introduce good goblins and neutral dark fairies. So at least the alignment issue is worked on somewhat.